Horse breeds from England

Intro

The Suffolk Punch is the oldest draft breed of Britain that still exists in their original conformational state today. The highest concentration of the breed can be found in their birthplace of East Anglia.(more…)

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Intro

Descendant from the English Great Horse of the Middle Ages, the Shire horse is among the largest of the draft breeds .

Origins

Appearing in Britain around the end of the 16th century when strong animals were needed to pull heavy wagons and coaches long distances over rough terrain. The Shire derived from blood of forest horses, and Friesian and Flanders horse imports.

The English Great horse is still considered the Shire horse’s principle ancestor, although its bloodlines were slowly reduced in the stock as the influx of Dutch Friesian blood grew stronger.

Modern Shire horses are renowned for their strength, a pair of Shire horses have pulled 16.5 tons of weight on granite paving tiles.

Features

Average height Over 17 hands
Extremely large animals
Incredible pulling strength
One of the biggest horses in the world

Physique

Long neck for a draft horse, with wide shoulders
Legs are clean and muscular, hocks set for maximum leverage
Heavy feathering on back of legs
Big, round hooves

Intro

The Lundy Pony is named for the isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel of England. There are no horses native to the cluster of islands there, so this breed was developed by the last private owner of Lundy Island.

Intro

Intro

England has a long history of trotting animals and the tradition is thought to go back to the Middle Ages. For many years two types of trotters came from the areas of East Anglis & the East Riding of Yorkshire, the Norfolk Trotter & the Yorkshire Hackneys.(more…)

Intro

Most of the ponies found on the British Isles are not indigenous to the islands, they made their way across the English Channel when it was still a marsh as long ago as 1500 BC. Skeletal evidence shows that these animals looked like a cross between the Tarpan and the present day Exmoor.(more…)

Intro

A breed of great antiquity, the Exmoor is one of the few breeds that looks very much the same today as they always have. They are believed to be the oldest pure descendants of the ponies that inhabited Britain some 100,000 years ago.(more…)